Being fiscally responsible at Christmastime sucks (pardon the French)

When November hit and Big A was still without any job or job prospects for that matter, I got to thinking about Christmas. I realize that it's not about the gifts but dang it, I'm a great gift giver and I love giving them so it is but with only one and a quarter income, I knew it wouldn't be prudent to buy for everyone as I had been. I hated to admit to it but I knew I had to bring this up to the brothers. I finally bit the bullet and sent an email out to them asking if perhaps we just buy each couple a joint gift like a gift certificate for dinner, Seinfeld DVD, sex toys...ok, maybe not the last one but something that can be enjoyed by the couple as a whole while continuing to get things for the two nephews. Once I hit send, I was verklempt for the next 24 hours. It was really hard for me to admit to something like that plus I always hate it when Christmas changes. My ideal Christmas would still mean tons of gifts under the tree. My younger brother liked the idea while my older brother said that he and his wife wanted us to just add what we would have given them to the boys. When P wrote that, J brought up the idea of perhaps just not exchanging gifts and just giving to the nephews. I agreed because fiscally, that would be the easiest. In addition, Big A and I decided to just to stocking stuffers and coupons for things that the other one likes to have done and perhaps the other needs to do more like, for example, me making Big A breakfast on a weekend morning. A couple weekends ago, I asked if he would like me to make him breakfast and he had me repeat it about 6 times because he couldn't believe it. Another coupon would be for a 15 minute use of the handheld back massager on him but without using it on his head which hurts him but for some reason, cracks me up plus my attention span doesn't normally allow for more than about 3 minutes of it. Things like that. I'm hoping that coming up with witty coupons and wrapping the nephews gifts early will ease the glaring emptiness of under the tree. Either that or I should have splurged on a tree skirt with pretty pictures on it that I wouldn't want to cover up rather than the plain red one that has been used for as long as I can remember. Heck, even the old cat that loved to lay on it isn't here to fill in the area this year.